Hunter Walker

AUGUST 22, 2021

A firm had led two successive ventures rounds into a portfolio company. There’s a lot of differences between VC 2021 and VC 2001, and the nature of inside rounds is one significant change that I rarely see discussed structurally. What was the big change? And they were Offensive rounds, not Defensive ones! But it’s important!

Vesting 163

Vesting Later Stage Acquisition Portfolio 163

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

The A round was done in February 2000 (end of the bull market) and my B round was done in April 2001 (bear market). So in the video I talked about the “stack rank&# of intros: portfolio companies, entrepreneurs, lawyers as the main ones and other investors as the secondary way. I eventually needed more money. Tough, but true.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Term Sheet Valuation Stock Options 282

VC Cafe

JULY 4, 2022

Another impact of the meltdown of the public markets is on performance, in LP and VC books which resulted in 68% of funds estimated to have marked down companies in their portfolio. It cites 3 reasons for that: 1. Many startups and scale-ups have built have vas war-chests that can provide them runway till 2025 2.

Venture Capital 167

Venture Capital Valuation Private Equity LP 167

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015

2) New market (less common form, examples are Lyft and eShares) and 3) New business model (least common, non-K9 portfolio examples are PriceLine and SolarCity). In late 2000, early 2001 I started my second company to test whether I can build a successful company again. We don’t have categories of interest.

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Early Stage Portfolio Software Engineering 48

ConversionXL

MARCH 19, 2020

Use that intelligence to inform product portfolio and investment choices.”. Value brands can also effectively reach out to pained-but-patient consumers who previously bought higher-end brands, a strategy Wal-Mart aggressively used with its ‘everyday low prices’ policy in the 2001 recession.” Premium-brand market leaders [.]

Marketing 121

Marketing Campaign Non-Compete Lean 121

VC Adventure

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

A few years back I blogged about the hard data behind venture outcomes and the challenge of creating a venture portfolio that produces strong returns. Since 2001, financings that have produced a 10X+ returns have fluctuated some but remain modest.

Marketing 91

Marketing Venture Capital Finance Portfolio 91

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 5, 2023

Last August, I passed the point at which I had spent literally half my entire life working in this asset class, having started at the General Motors pension fund doing institutional investments in venture funds and late-stage directs back in February of 2001.

Later Stage 218

Later Stage Venture Capital Term Sheet Limited Partner 218

Austin Startup

APRIL 27, 2019

Recently one of the startups in our portfolio, eRelevance, failed, as the Austin American-Statesman documented. As I wrote about in my post on Seven critical lessons learned in angel investing , this is painful and you must have a diversified portfolio to practice angel investing and actually make money.

B2C 51

B2C Austin Cofounder IPO 51

Ben's Blog

JUNE 18, 2011

In 2001, Stewart Butterfield abandoned plans to build a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) after costs became too great; he built photo-sharing service Flickr instead. Because Stewart’s programmers are ten times more productive than they were in 2001 due to massive advances in programming language technology.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Software Review Valuation Internet 76

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

More people than ever have taken the plunge to go self-employed; the number of self-employed workers has been increasing in the UK since 2001 — and they now account for around 15% of the working population. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay. Have you thought about making the leap to self-employment? Update your website.

Finance 84

Finance Portfolio Restful Demand 84

David Cohen

MARCH 30, 2020

In 2001, the towers were hit. In 2000, the Internet bubble burst. By 2002 the NASDAQ had fallen by nearly 80%. Starting a tech company after this? Or even working for one? You must be nuts. Sudden change. It changed everything overnight. Nobody saw it coming. The financial markets quickly gave up more than a trillion dollars.

Founder 174

Founder Valuation Startup IP 174

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2015

Today I called it, “our own little VC led, portfolio-by-portfolio company version of RIP Good Times from 7 years ago.” We have an entire generation of startup founders who don’t have muscle memory from getting their burn rates back into shape from 2008/09 or 2001-2005. What is your cash balance?

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate San Francisco Private Equity LP 150

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 20, 2014

But the USV Opportunity Fund was the first time, at least in the post 2001-Internet bubble cycle (or last decade, if you want to put it that way) where an early stage firm created a separate fund to invest in late stage rounds of their existing early-stage portfolio companies.

Early Stage 147

Early Stage Later Stage Syndicate Syndication 147

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2017

Google Ventures was one of our co-investors, and in addition to all the other typical support GV provides their portfolio, this startup gained some unique insights for their organic and paid search strategy which were impactful and couldn’t have been gleaned elsewhere. .

Strategic Investors 120

Strategic Investors Post-Money Valuation Seed Stage Cofounder 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

When he entered the industry he caught the tail end of the dot com bubble and then was immediately thrust into a 3-year period of “triage&# where VC’s had to deal with problems in portfolio companies. This lasted from about 2001-2004. Founded in Sunnyvale, CA in 2001. Formerly known as Fonelet Technologies.

San Francisco 230

San Francisco Los Angeles Cofounder SMS 230

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. My experience of 2001-2004 is very remote from what you are describing. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

While a flood of new VCs came into existence during the late 90’s internet boom, many had difficulty raising new funds after the crashes of 2000-2001 and 2008 , and as a result significantly fewer fund managers exist now compared to a decade ago. In the past ten years there have been several dramatic changes in venture capital.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

Austin Startup

JUNE 27, 2017

A strategy for meeting these investors in Austin is to figure out the board schedule of their portfolio companies, as they they will likely travel here for those meeting. This list is venture funds that have invested in two or more Austin-based companies over the past two years. link] Click here to download a PDF with all of the tables above.

Venture Capital 54

Venture Capital Austin Texas Private Equity 54

Feld Thoughts

MAY 17, 2016

My whole world blew up in 2001. My portfolio melted down with the bursting of the Internet bubble. And, with my partner Jason, we still manage what is left of the portfolio (still several hundred million of assets) simply because it is the right thing to do for the LPs.

San Francisco 108

San Francisco Internet Portfolio New York 108

Up and Running

AUGUST 1, 2016

To build up your portfolio and client base, you may want to start with a site like Upwork (and check out my article on using Upwork to find great freelancers —it’ll give you insight into what to do, and what not to do!). Do you have a car (more specifically, a 4-door sedan, year 2001 or newer )? Freelance writing. Driving for Uber.

Design 60

Design Demand Finder Cost 60

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 20, 2014

But the USV Opportunity Fund was the first time, at least in the post 2001-Internet bubble cycle (or last decade, if you want to put it that way) where an early stage firm created a separate fund to invest in late stage rounds of their existing early-stage portfolio companies.

Early Stage 108

Early Stage Later Stage Syndicate Syndication 108

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2015

I’ve seen friends (and family members) lose much of their savings that way over the years because “Black Swans” happen and in 1987, 2001, 2003 & 2008 (just to name a few from my memory) huge market gyrations caused much financial distress to people seeking short-term gains. So, too, investments.

Stock 150

Stock Finance Marketing Valuation 150

Babbling VC

DECEMBER 5, 2010

I had a business in the portfolio doing fairly well. Further, they went into fundraising and basically were focussed on completely different things as opposed to this one company in their large portfolio. Although I probably couldn't of avoided this mistake, I underestimated at how many tables I'd be sitting alone in 2001.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Europe Portfolio Germany 76

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

I will use some examples from Parachute and some other portfolio companies to give you examples from our experiences of watching successful brands grow. We seed funded a company a few years ago called Parachute Home that has grown 180% CAGR (compounded annually) and is now doing tens of millions of revenue with very little capital raised.

Curation 296

Curation Los Angeles Differentiation Channel 296

Ben's Blog

APRIL 27, 2011

In recognition of his phenomenal vision and execution, BEA named Alfred its new Chief Executive Officer in October 2001. Alfred’s tiny, expensive acquisition became the company and the company became great.

Acquisition 78

Acquisition Cloud Architecture Revenue 78

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

Make sure to call the companies in that VCs portfolio that didn’t succeed. My chips were down in late 2000 / early 2001. When you finally get back up on your feet again, Everybody wants to be your old long-lost friend. Said it's mighty strange, without a doubt, Nobody knows you when you're down and out. My story briefly.

Venture Capital 288

Venture Capital Term Sheet Cofounder Partner 288

Cracking the Code

JANUARY 19, 2016

I began my career at McKinsey and when the Internet bubble burst in 2001, I made a shift towards online software (ASP at the time). What’s the n°1 startup that you wish you had in your portfolio? They are running a series of interviews of European VCs investing in SaaS and I was lucky to be the first one.

API 48

API Silicon Valley Europe Differentiation 48

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 26, 2022

What guidance for your portfolio companies? I think every company’s portfolio is different, so they’re all different sizes, different stages, different geographies, different cash positions, and different market leadership positions. . I will say the one thing we tell all our portfolio companies is to get fit and lean in.

Partner 132

Partner Cofounder Retention Acquisition 132

finance.fortune.cnn.com

AUGUST 21, 2012

FORTUNE -- Its no secret that venture capitalists were hit hard by last decades dotcom bust, considering that median returns for 1998-2001 vintage funds are all underwater. The information is based on part of a confidential year-end 2011 investment report distributed to investors in a fund-of-funds that made commitments between 1999 and 2001.

Naming 49

Naming Term Sheet Private Equity Equity 49

Feld Thoughts

JULY 28, 2014

When I first heard about VC firms in the late 1980s, and my first company (Feld Technologies) started writing portfolio management software for some Boston-based VC firms, many of them had funds with SBIC leverage, although even by the late 1980s this was changing and many of them had shifted away from the SBIC. .”

SBIC 142

SBIC Venture Capital Colorado SBA 142

YoungUpstarts

MAY 12, 2014

In the letter, Buffett advised, “Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value.” He has been a regular panelist on television’s Forbes on FOX since the show’s inception in 2001. Buffett doesn’t care about the latest buzz.

Stock 157

Stock Memphis Balance Sheet Analytics 157

genylabs.typepad.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

The best start-up I ever invested in went bankrupt in 2001. Also, because I have equity in multiple tech start-ups I gain portfolio diversification benefits (meaning Im more likely to get lucky). Ive had the good fortune to both work for and invest in successful tech start-ups. Ive also invested in a number of start-up failures.

Equity 40

Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

David Teten

MAY 16, 2011

He then led the growth of the domain services division, expanded into the aftermarket business and built Oversee’s owned and operated portfolio of domain names into one of the worlds largest, firmly establishing the company as a leader in Internet real estate. Mr. Geleerd has been a member of YPO since 2000.

Naming 122

Naming Government Intellectual Property LLC 122

thebarefootvc

MARCH 8, 2012

I talked about creative disruption and how many significant companies would be formed as a result of this (not dissimilar to what I saw in Silicon Valley while investing post 2001 crash). More importantly, building global networks is key in order to optimize exit opportunities for portfolio companies.

Silicon Valley 69

Silicon Valley Ghana Venture Capital India 69

Agile VC

JULY 19, 2012

Back in the 2000-2001 timeframe, a flood of LP capital was coming into the VC asset class given the strong returns of the mid-late 90s tech boom/bubble. Though they only started in 2006, Foundry’s obviously off to a great start with investments in Zynga and AdMeld and a promising portfolio of others.

Cofounder 193

Cofounder Limited Partner Early Stage LP 193

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 21, 2017

Today I own and manage a company specifically designed to help people grow their portfolios. After retiring in 2001, I also joined a ladies networking group, On Purpose Networking for Women (OPN). It benefited me, that my previous job was teaching, because I could take that skill and transfer it to my new company.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Investment Bankers PR Social Media 48

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

I got my greencard approval in 2001, a few months after 9/11. I’ve used my own experience as a prototype to help the founders of two of my portfolio companies obtain their legal permanent resident status by going through the EB-1 (Alien of Extraordinary Ability) and EB-2 (National Interest) process respectively.

United States 114

United States Founder India Venture Capital 114